“I don’t know, Lizie, is there any saying she has any money left?” Eliza pouts. “Pardon me for mentioning it I’m sure! You’re always saying ‘Anyfings gotta be better than this’ and when I hand you it on a plate, you don’t even say thank you....”
The evening before, they had both pored over the scrap of paper torn from “Reynold’s Advertiser”. Molly had been dubious. “You don’t even know if it’s the same Mrs Heathcote...”. Eliza points out that if it ain’t, her sister ain’t lost nuffing, which is certainly true. “It’s a noppertoonity, that’s what it is, an you diddun orta waste it!”
What neither feels the need to point out, is the precise nature of the opportunity. If the Mrs Heathcote who has placed the advertisement is the same one Eliza had worked for, then Molly will, Eliza argues, be at a considerable advantage. For Eliza Bibbs, whatever she may have told Rose Adams, had left the former Miss Barkins with a character so glowing it had enabled her to secure the position of parlourmaid here at Dunfield Park, alongside her sister. And this despite having sampled every type of misbehaviour a lady’s maid is capable of, from fraternising with butcher’s boys to helping herself to face powder.
What does Eliza know? What is Mrs Heathcote’s guilty secret? Truth to tell, even Eliza knows nothing, except that her erstwhile employer has one, and is prepared - despite her habits of parsimony - to shell out a modest sum to keep it. Eliza knows that it concerns “Mr Heathcote”, and there her knowledge ends. One evening shortly after joining her service, on the journey back toward Calais, she had been inspired to murmur in Madam’s ear “I met a gentleman in town who told me all about Mr Heathcote, ma’am” and had watched the result in the mirror. “Shall we have some more Gorringe’s Complexion Corrector, ma’am?” she had enquired suavely of the ashen visage....
She had hit home, but it was a shot in the dark: a lucky shot nonetheless. There had been something about the way her mistress referred to “the late Mr Heathcote” which had set her antennae twitching. Her instincts told her that no such gentleman had ever existed, and her instincts - they had got her out if worse holes than a little pilfering - were finely tuned. Her arrow had flown straight and true to the gold.
Despite her undoubted sensitivity, Eliza’s imagination is restricted to the well-trodden paths of scandal. “You mark my words, Molly, she’s one of them women you hear about. She’s bin kept. Mrs Heathcote my arse, she’s no more married than I am. You can tell a married wumman a mile off, and she ain’t one! I shouldn’t wonder if there ain’t a couple of children somewhere, if she ain’t had them bumped orf!” And with this treacherous assertion, for which she has no evidence whatsoever, she’s back in the house, leaving Molly to struggle with the water alone.
Poor Eliza. She has snatched at only part of the truth, and missed the whole. And that whole is so very much superior to her predictable imaginings. Mrs Heathcote is no discarded mistress, although whether or not she is a married woman, let alone a widow, is rather more obscure....
We cannot ask her to tell her own story. Not because it would be cruel, but because we would not hear a single word of the truth. It was, after all, in Dieppe and not in Vienna that she met her husband, and from there on, reality becomes less and less discernible in her account.
Instead, we will consult the “real” Mr Heathcote, or rather Lord Hethecott as he is, since the death of the ailing father he had accompanied to the spas of the Continent... Here he is comfortably ensconced in his solicitor’s book-lined study, cigar at the “present” position. The solicitor is the family one: he and his forebears have served the Hethecott dynasty for generations. Though Lord Hethecott had made some of the arrangements while still abroad, there were loose ends to tidy up at home. We are sitting here with them, glass of madeira in hand, some time before the events in Scarborough and the conversation at the Dunfield Park pump....
“I know, Finch” (of Finch, Finch, Kirby and Milbank) “but the whole business was so deuced embarrassing. She had married the blackguard in the name of Hethecott and there it was on her marriage lines, bold as brass.” He leans forward to deposit his cigar ash in the proffered receptacle. “She may have been an idiot, but it was not her who was the criminal. She *had* married him, in her proper name of Barkins, and it is not yet against the law to be a demned fool...”
Finch murmurs something palliative. “Still...” he goes on, “to institute a regular payment of this sort. Some might think your involvement was more than accidental. Some might even suspect...” Those suspicions hang in the air uneasily. Lord Hethecott barks a sardonic laugh. “I shouldn’t think so, old boy, they’d only have to take one look at her. A raddled old harridan nearing forty, and not looking good on it. Vulgar, self-satisfied and dislikeable. If I couldn’t do better than that, I’d deserve the obloquy!”
Mr Finch shuffles paper, as solicitors do when at a loss for words. “Still, the amount....” Lord Hethecott blows a smoke ring at the ceiling. “Small beer, Finch, now I’ve inherited. Worth every penny for the peace of mind. She is not to produce the document unless legally required to, she is not to contact me, and she is most certainly not to call herself Lady Hethecott, or the money ceases forthwith. Nor have I yet formally removed the possibility of legal action.”
“But she is calling herself Mrs Heathcote” the lawyer observes, disapprovingly. “Well, the poor old dear has got to call herself something. She can hardly revert to Miss Barkins, can she? As long as she uses a different version, it’s no odds to me.... Should the occasion arise, she can blame any discrepancy on foreigners and their bad spelling...” Hezekiah Finch is not yet fully convinced. “By rights, she should call herself Mrs Sheepshed...” he points out.
“But do we even know that was the fellow’s name?” inquires Lord Hethecott. “His reference was genuine enough, but when I got in touch with old Badgeworth, there was definitely something fishy: said the reference that he’d been given turned out to be forged. And there was something off about the whole business, should wonder if he’d been blackmailing Badgy.
“Anyway, he’s vanished and gone. If he sets foot in England again, he won’t be calling himself Sheepshed. She might not be the first poor dupe he’s pulled that trick on. For all we know he has a string of “wives” right across Europe. All different names. Thought she had money, you see? And she thought she was getting a wealthy heir, the old Lord on his last legs and everything. Biter bit, and all that.”
“Serves her right, then” observes Finch, pouring himself another glass of madeira. Don’t mind if I do, thank you very much. “If she can’t tell the difference between a peer of the realm and a valet...” Lord Hethecott gestures expansively with what is left of his cigar. “Now, now, Finch! It’s not as if she were a lady herself, so to speak, not in the strictest sense of the word. And who better than a valet to impersonate a Lord, eh? Of course, a real lady would have noticed my clothes didn’t fit him properly...” Lord Hethecott looks down with satisfaction at his immaculate tailoring.
“Still, I’ve learned my lesson. Palgrave is six inches shorter than me. Of course, I shall never see the ruby and diamond studs again, nor my pearl tie pin - or the sable-lined top coat, for that matter. He was wearing it when he fled, d’ye see? I wonder if I winged him? It would be a shame to make a hole in that coat. But then I’m such a wretched bad shot with a revolver. If I’d had the shotguns with me, I’d have brought him down and no mistake. Just like getting a low grouse, except he wasn’t moving near so fast...”
Mr Finch drinks his madeira. The amount is, in all honesty, a modest enough price to forestall any hint of scandal. Lord Hethecott speaks again. “The worst of it is, he was such a demned good valet...”
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